Greta Gerwig’s transitional tale fails to take flight as Lady Bird lays an egg in quite a disappointing flutter. And, as we searched for the comedy amidst the trivial, we could only roll our eyes as not even DMB could save this film.

Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Ronan) hams it up throughout the story drawing more angst than sympathy. Yet, as we would like to believe, it wasn’t Ronan’s fault this time. Gerwig overdevelops Christine, meaning, in a 93 minute movie, we were deluged with multiple bits of forced drama in checklist fashion. And, unfortunately, this multitude of defining and cliched familial or social themes watered down the final film, ironically or not. Also, we had high hopes for Marion (Metcalf) who was virtually hamstrung; unable to spread her impeccable impromptu wings of sarcasm while buried in the unappreciated mom role.

As the film progresses, there is merit in the relationship between Lady Bird and Marion with Larry (Letts) involuntarily refereeing the endless antagonizing. But it leads to the some of the worst concluding minutes in cinema. We did not like or love this film as Lady Bird migrates south in our ratings, tallying only 1.79 napkins out of 5.